Archive for the 'Cinema' Category

My 1080p HTPC: Multiple Freeview Tuners

Published
by
Howard
on July 12th 2008
in Cinema, HDTV, Hardware, Microsoft and Software
. 0 Comments

When I originally built my HTPC, I used 2 Freeview cards.  Each Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T500 has two Freeview tuners in one PCI card.  By installing two of these (and with some registry tweaking) it is possible to build a device that can record/watch 4 Freeview channels at once.

Out of the box the Vista Media Centre GUI is only capable of setting up 2 tuners at any one time.  This is odd since the underlying tuner architecture is actually quite capable of using as many tuners as you can fit in the machine.  Your limiting factor, really, is the speed you can push the data to your hard drive. Continue reading ‘My 1080p HTPC: Multiple Freeview Tuners’

My 1080p HTPC: The Software

Published
by
Howard
on June 26th 2008
in Cinema, HDTV, Hardware, Software and TV
. 0 Comments

Full HD 1080As I mentioned in the last post, I’m running the Media Center (yes, that’s how they spell it) interface from Vista Ultimate to drive my HTPC. Out of the box Vista Media Center (VMC) is capable of playing DVDs and MPEG2 broadcast content - such as the output of a Hauppauge DVB-T or DVB-S TV card. What it can’t do is play the more esoteric formats such as DivX, XVid and hidef containers such as the Matroska (MKV) files. Continue reading ‘My 1080p HTPC: The Software’

Would you like to check it again?

Published
by
Howard
on April 11th 2006
in Cinema, General and Security
. 0 Comments

Flexible Friends

At the cinema tonight I paid for the tickets with a card that was issued very soon after Chip & Pin came out, as such I had never used the card in a situation where I needed to sign - it has only been used with Chip & Pin (progress, woo!). Until tonight, where the cinema haven’t upgraded their point of sale systems yet still require a signature for verification.

So, I handed over the card. The clerk looked at it, flipped it over, looked at it some more and then said falteringly, “It’s not, urm, signed…” He handed it back. He was right, it wasn’t - I’d obviously never got round to signing the strip on the back and having only ever paid with Chip & Pin no one else had ever noticed. Oops. What happened next was brilliant, and I thought only the stuff of urban legend… he handed me a pen. Then he watched me sign the back of the card. Then he handed me the payment slip and watched me sign that too. Then, and this is what really made me laugh: he checked them!

I asked him “Do they match?” at which point he realised how dumb the whole process had been. I then showed him other cards in my wallet that proved my signature was mine. A saluatory lesson in what happens when you train people to blindly follow a process without actually thinking about the security requirement behind it…

Oh and Alien Autopsy is a fun little film which gets away with the trick of making you forget that Ant & Dec are, well, Ant & Dec. Also worth it for Jimmy Carr and Omid Djalilli’s appearances.

Kodama

Published
by
Howard
on April 2nd 2006
in Cinema
. 1 Comment

Kodama This friendly looking little fellow is a Kodama - one of the rattle-headed tree spirits than inhabit the forest in Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” which I watched for the first time recently. It’s an outstanding bit of anime that I’d not heard of before despite already having on DVD some of Miyazaki’s more obscure work. If you’ve seen Spirited Away or My Neighbour Totorro you’ll know what to expect. I have a copy which includes the english adaptation (edited by Neil Gaiman no less) which uses Billy Bob Thornton and Billy Crudup as voice talent, but I watched it in the original Japanese with subtitles. I’m a bit of a purist like that - I always watch films in their original language wherever possible. I find dubbed movies - even when done well - extremely offputting.

AshitakaThe film starts with Prince Ashitaka at the edge of his village noticing something “not human” in the forest beyond the watch towers. It is a demon - consumed by rage and hate it has come to destroy Ashitaka’s village. Ashitaka, armed with bow and arrow, and on the back of his red Elk “Yakkul” defeats the demon, but not before being cursed by its touch. The wise woman of the village explains what has happened. The demon is a boar-God from the West of the land, it has been shot, and the iron pellet inside it has driven it to this all consuming hatred.

Now cursed, Ashitaka must leave the village before he is consumed by the same rage; and the film follows his journey to the west to discover who or what is causing the imbalance in the world. This is not a cartoon with black and white answers, and obvious good or bad guys - shades of grey abound as the forces of humans, of nature, and of the nature Gods all vie for control of the bounty of the natural world.

I shan’t give any more away, suffice to say that if you have any liking of anime at all, you should definitely add this to your list of things to see!

I liked the Kodama in the film so much I’ve made the image above my MSN picture. :)

Next I shall watch Grave of the Fireflies; another anime recommended by the same friend who pointed me at Princess Mononoke.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Published
by
Howard
on December 21st 2005
in Books and Cinema
. 0 Comments

I took my mum to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last night. She and I both read the Narnia books as children, and while we vaguely recall reading them all our fondest, and strongest, memories were of this first story. Continue reading ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’

Oh.

Published
by
Howard
on October 12th 2005
in Cinema, Hardware, Internet, Software and TV
. 1 Comment

So it is the much mooted and debated video iPod. That surprised me, given that in several recent interviews Steve Jobs has basically poo-pooed the entire idea of video on the iPod. “I don’t get it.” he had said. And it genuinely seemed like he didn’t grok the concept of video on a portable device. It looks like someone changed his mind - and Apple have put serious planning into this, already with deals to show big TV shows like Desperate Housewives and Lost on the new iTunes.

This whole video in iTunes thing ties quite nicely into FrontRow - a new bit of software which will get bundled with today’s other Apple release: the G5 iMac. This would explain why the supply lines to Apple retailers have been drying up recently… FrontRow, with built-in iSight camera, and handy remote control gives you an out of the box multimedia experience. It’ll play the content you download from iTunes on it’s lovely display, while you sit back and relax using the very cute, very simple remote control.

It’s nice kit, as always, but the jury’s out on the appeal of video on the move. Apple have brought down the price and launched legal content that people will want, but do you want to watch TV on a 2.5″ screen? Outside of the “cool” factor with which to wow your friends, how often are you going to want to sit down and watch Lost on a tiny screen, when you can stick it on your 42″ plasma when you get home?

I suppose there are commuters who would love to sit on the train and catch up with the TV they missed - the fact that iTunes will sync TV shows to your iPod the day after the show airs just as automagically as with PodCasts is very cool. But then attention to detail like that is Apple’s hallmark.

The iPod can’t compete with the Archos and it’s ilk in terms of screen size - and a hacked PSP has a far better screen for watching video - but in creating a legal market for downloadable TV shows Apple have raised the bar for every other player in the media space, on portable devices and in the home. If I can download legal copies of my favourite shows for a couple of dollars, I’ll do that rather than fight with a BitTorrent client to download a file of dubious provenance. Of course the likelihood is that Apple will be forced to restrict video downloads to certain territories, so a UK iTunes member won’t be able to download this weeks Lost, for example. That isn’t Apple’s fault though, and until the media publishers realise that they can’t control how small the (virtual) world has become people will still “steal” television to get round idiotic territorial controls.

Next step: agreements with Tivo and other PVR manufacturers to transfer TV shows from Tivo to the iPod. Again, that’ll take huge negotiations with publishers and rights owners - and while the lawyers get rich off that some bright geek in open source land will write a script that does it for you… just wait!

Liars and Thieves…

Published
by
Howard
on December 7th 2004
in Cinema and General
. Closed

Well, I’d heard rumours about this around the time the first Matrix movie was released, but it would appear that it’s true. The Wachowski brothers are a pair of lying, thieving bastards, having ripped off Sophia Stewart’s manuscript - written in 1981. Apparently she’s due a pay off for the Terminator movies too. Does that make Cameron a thief too, or just Warner Bros?

In other news, I commented out a potentially lethal line in some WordPress code today, to stop people being able to screw the site over. Richard (who brought it to my attention) has blogged on it more extensively.

This Isn’t Your Father’s Trilogy

Published
by
Howard
on September 22nd 2004
in Cinema
. Closed

I think Penny Arcade manage to speak for all of us on the subject of Lucas’ tinkering with the original trilogy.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Published
by
Howard
on September 15th 2004
in Cinema
. Closed

(3 out of 5. Seen @ SterCentury, Basingstoke, Screen 4)

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron BurgundyHow much you enjoy Anchorman will depend a great deal on how much you’ve enjoyed anything with Will Ferrell in, or indeed any of his friends. You might not be able to recall immediately Ferrell’s face, but you’ve probably seen his arse bared in several low-brow comedies, most recently in films like Old School, Zoolander and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The cast of Anchorman reads like a reunion of the casts of all those films, and several more recent American comedies. Luke Wilson, Jack Black, Vince Vaughn - it’s like these guys can’t make a movie without calling up all their mates to cameo, and that’s no bad thing. Most of them are Saturday Night Live alumni, with a gift for improv, and it’s clear that a lot of the funniest lines in this film are a result of talented comic actors riffing off one another. (Stick around for the out-takes in the end credits for an example of how inventive they can be.)

So, it stars the current rising comedy stars of US cinema, but is Anchorman any good? Well, yeah, kinda. The plot is paper thin, packing in as many of the standard comedy cliches as it can - the “cute meet”, the work-place romance, the vengeful lover, the fall of the star and - of course - his redemption. If you think I’ve given away the plot there you’ve obviously not seen very many movies - it’s the plot of every comedy/romance/farce that Hollywood ever produces. The point is not to be surprised by what happens, but to be entertained by how it happens in this movie. And, for the most part, you will be.

Ron Burgundy himself is dumber than a bag of hammers, shamelessly chauvinistic and has actually started to believe his own network promos. He’s so stupid, he really will read anything you put on the tele-prompter. ANYTHING. Despite his many inadequacies, you’ll probably end up liking him. His boy’s club cohorts, the redneck sports guy and the ladies-man roving reporterare less enchanting, although I did enjoy the retard weatherman - Brick - whose name pretty accurately sums up his intelligence. I’m told that originally they wanted John C Reilly (Dr Cox from Scrubs) for the part of Champ Kind (the sports reporter), now that I would have really liked to see!

Anchorman isn’t going to win any awards, and it’s not as consistently funny as Dodgeball (also starring a load of the SNL alumni) but it’s an inoffensive way to pass a couple of hours. See it on an Orange 2for1 deal, or rent it on DVD.

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